The British Broadcasting Corporation Ltd (BBC), likes to distance itself from the tv licence; though it is the television licensing authority in the UK.
To maintain this distance, the BBC, have concocted "TV Licensing". "TV Licensing" is a trademarked umbrella trading name under the cover of which various contractors under the BBC "TV Licensing" contract operate.

Sunday, 16 March 2014

Substitution and Circumvention

Well, true to form, BBC’s main TV Licensing™ contractor, the outsourcing industry's equivalent of Mr Carker, the ever "creative" Capita Business Services seem to have been up to some rules bending chicanery on behalf of their ever money hungry BBC paymasters.

June 25 2013 was a notable date. It was the date when the notorious TV Dealer Notification to TV Licensing™ ceased. Fellow blogger TV Licensing Blog published a very interesting and informative blogpost about it. The TV Dealer Notification scheme was the primary means by which retailers grassed up their loyal customers’ names and addresses when they purchased TVs and other potentially “licensable” (including no licence needed DVD players, etc, etc) consumer electronics goodies like VCRs and DVDRs to Capita BBC TV Licensing™.

Customers whose addresses were “not properly licensed” (sic) would some time later receive a kindly missive from Capita BBC TV Licensing™ citing that they had been grassed on by the retailer concerned whom they had so kindly patronised, that they parted with the money, had the goodies and now was the time they had better cough up for a TV licence or they would “send the boys round” for a contribution to the BBC TV access tax scam and, by the way, bend over and get shafted by giving us a prosecution statement so you can be stitched up and prosecuted 6 months later.

Well the means of reporting ceased on 25 June 2013. So naturally, the BBC being the BBC and Capita BBC TV Licensing™ being . . . well anyway we wondered how long it was going to be before we and others started getting reports that the cessation of the TV Dealer Notification scheme had been successfully substituted with another little data harvesting scam that neatly circumvents the cessation of the flow of grassing on people data from retailers filling out a multipart NCR book. Sure enough the reports have started coming in.

TV Licensing Blog has been active in the matter, naming and shaming retailers who have continued to supply TV Dealer Notification data to Capita BBC TV Licensing™ via the multipart NCR book since 25 June 2013. Many retailers claimed that they only did so for “post sale warranty purposes”. We among others find that considerably less than credible. When approached on the subject most staff did not know the TV Dealer Notification scheme had ended. However, having been completed unlawfully with customer data that Capita BBC TV Licensing™ could not lawfully use, supplies of the multipart NCR TV Dealer Notification book seem to have dried up even though they should have long since been destroyed. So according to reports what seems to be happening now is that retailers are notifying Capita BBC TV Licensing™ of the names and addresses of customers from the various payment cards used in the transactions. And of course, those addresses harvested from the payment cards which are not “properly licensed”(sic) have been getting the aforementioned threatening missives from Capita BBC TV Licensing™.

Perusal of the rules published by the UK Cards Association and UK Payments Administration shows that the names and addresses of payment card users may be passed on to certain organisations purely “on a need to know” basis. So what Capita BBC TV Licensing™ seem to be doing is alright then? Seemingly. However, if the reports are true and we have no reason to disbelieve them, when people think about it there is one small problem in the data harvesting payment card transactions the way Capita BBC TV Licensing™ seem to be doing. Apart from the multitude of lawful uses for unlicensed televisions and audio-visual equipment, what is that? Careful reading of the text on the thumbnail images makes it obvious.

The BBC's and Capita TV Licensing™'s “on a need to know” basis published by the UK Cards Association and UK Payments Administration arguably ceased when the TV Dealer Notification scheme ceased last year on 25 June 2013. We foresee more than a few angry, aggrieved people in receipt of those threatening missives from Capita BBC TV Licensing™ as a consequence of their payment card transactions lodging complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office about this.

The value of domestic cctv surveillance and handheld video camera can prove invaluable in gathering evidence of the serial abuses and misdemeanours perpetrated by employees of Capita Business Services under cover of the BBC TV Licensing™ contract. TV Licensing Watch advises anybody who has the misfortune to have face to face dealings with Capita Business Services TV Licensing™ to make an audio-visual record of those dealings in their entirety covertly or overtly with cctv and handheld video cameras.

For people who have not exercised their right to remain silent, TV Licensing Watch advise anybody who has had the misfortune to have face to face dealings with Capita Business Services TV Licensing™ and have received a summons as a consequence to contact a licensed law practitioner if: there is the slightest discrepancy between the actual situation regarding viewing habits and/or what actually happened during the interview compared with what has been written on the TVL178 Record of Interview self incrimination form.